Book publishing. And everything else.

Archive for the tag “It IS the future”

Farhad Manjoo reports that Amazon is preparing to offer same-day delivery. Manjoo’s great about the implications of this service. I’m just thinking about how I shop now as opposed to how my parents used to.

I subscribe to Amazon Prime. So of course all the delights of free shipping, and almost-always next-day delivery have been mine for quite some time. For certain things, I’d much rather click, buy, and go about my day than make the time (which is all too precious) to stop at a store, poke around the aisles, take the risk that my thing might not be in stock…it’s kind of demoralizing.

Other companies have learned from Amazon. I have a subscription to Aveda. There are certain products I use regularly (lots of them, actually – yes, I will pay good money to smell good) so I have them regularly shipped to me from their replenishment service. I don’t have to have the OMG I AM OUT OF CONFIXOR moments anymore.

Instead of care packages for my Diva daughter at college, I select what I want her to have and Amazon does the pick-and-pack and gets the stuff to her in record time. If it weren’t for Amazon, my kid would starve.

Bernardo and I are installing a swimming pool in the next few weeks. It occurred to me to check on Amazon – yes, I can order an above-ground pool for a moderate price AND FREE SHIPPING. What if I didn’t have to wait a day? What if I could get it…now?

When the fulfillment of physical goods approaches the speed of digital fulfillment, do we need replicators?